Gary's Blog

April 2011 - Posts

• XAF is on The Move And so am I

  But don’t worry because neither of us are going very far. Firstly, and most importantly, where is the XAF content going? Well, as you’ll know by now, we were lucky enough to hire Tolis as a new evangelist on the frameworks team. Obviously he’ll be blogging about XAF and, equally obviously, he won’t be publishing those posts on my blog. So we took the decision to move all XAF content (from this point forward) back to the XAF blog, where it used to live before I joined DevExpress. Just to be clear then, from now on, all the XAF related blog posts will be found at the following URL: http://community.devexpress.com/blogs/eaf/default.aspx So that takes care of XAF, but what about me? Well, as I said, I’m not going far. I’ll be sticking around to help Tolis settle in, and also to co-host the XAF webinars with him and anything else he needs as he finds his feet with the company, with the products, and with you horrible lot. Other than that, I’ll be taking over the role of Developer Evangelist at DevExpress. What will that mean? Well, in the main, it will mean that my duties will expand to cover all product areas within DevExpress. I’ll be getting out and about as much as possible and meeting as many of you as I can, whilst showing off whatever part of the DevExpress product line is of most interest to you. I’ll also be keeping my ear to the ground, to find out about the next hot topics, and making sure you know how to use our products with them. I’ll also be making videos and doing webinars with you as I show off what’s new and cool out there. So sit back, relax and enjoy the ride, it’s sure to be a blast. Well that’s all for this post, so until next time, happy… err… well I’m not too sure really. Dang, looks like I need a new sign off! Posted Apr 13 2011, 08:44 PM by Gary Short (DevExpress) with no comments Filed under: XAF, Evangelism

• Sql Bits 8 – ‘Beside the Seaside’

  April 7 – 9 saw us make the trip down to sunny Brighton for SQL Bits, Europe’s largest SQL Server conference. The weather was amazing and the glorious sunshine added to the holiday atmosphere at the conference (the odd ice-cream on the beach didn’t hurt either ). Of course we weren’t there to have fun, but to work (honest gov’), and I delivered a session on ways to mitigate against the the ORM / Relational impedance. I’ll turn this into a blog post in the next couple of days so you can all enjoy part of the conference – if not the glorious weather. Being the conference it is, SQL Bits attracts the best speakers in the SQL field from all over the world, including the SQL Customer Advisory Team, who did a keynote session and a panel discussion session. Both of these sessions were highly informative and greatly appreciated by the audience. Other speakers attended from countries as far afield as the US, Australia, Holland and Israel. Like all conferences, SQL Bits isn’t all about the sessions, but is an opportunity to catch up with old friends and to have a bit of fun. In my case I ran into Phil Winstanley who’ve I not spoken to since he joined Microsoft. Other attendees were able to relax and play around on the Xbox that Microsoft were kind enough to bring down to the event. Between the great content and the great atmosphere, Sql Bits is one of the “must go to” conferences in the UK, so make sure I see you there next time, and if I do, don’t forget to say ‘hi’! Posted Apr 12 2011, 05:58 PM by Gary Short (DevExpress) with no comments Filed under: Databases